


A Certain Reputation

by yunitsa



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunitsa/pseuds/yunitsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I came out of this film shipping Bond/everyone. Scenarios promptly presented themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Reputation

**1) Resurrection**

“You’re certainly not staying here,” she says, but he knows her: can see the wavering in the last glance she spares him.

“I’ve just returned from the dead, M,” Bond says. “What more does a man have to do to get a spot on your sofa?”

It’s made her stop in the doorway. “Not die in the first place,” M snaps. “And don’t tell me I ordered the shot. I shouldn’t have had to order it.”

“You knew I wasn’t dead,” he states. He’s read the obituary.

“Of course I knew. I’d never believe it without a body. A mirror, a feather, a lead-lined coffin. I still wouldn’t believe it.” Her voice doesn’t change; her face is half in shadow, between the lit hallway and the dark room. “Well, you’d better make yourself useful, now you’re back.”

Bond puts down the bottle. His vision is pleasantly hazy, risks and rewards blurring together. “What about your bed?” he asks.

“What?” she says, quick as a bullet.

He takes a step forward, then another. “What does a dead man have to do to get a spot in your bed?”

M studies him; she is small, unbendable. Her concealment of emotion is an emotion in itself. She wrinkles her nose. “As I said before, Mr. Bond. A shower would be a start.”

 

**2) Mightier Than**

With MI6 headquarters still under construction, they meet in a cafe off Trafalgar Square, jostled by office workers and tourists. He spots Q at a corner table with a legal pad and a cooling latte, tapping a pen absently against his lips. 

“Ah, there you are,” Q says, pushing up his glasses, as Bond sits down across from him. Their feet brush under the spindly table, and a rectangular case is pushed across. 

Q seems oddly jumpy, nervous, as he runs through the equipment in the case – electronic master-key, GPS tracker, gun – so much so that Bond casts a surreptitious look around to check if they’re being watched. When Q gathers up his bag and coat, he leaves the legal pad behind.

The pen catches Bond’s eye: it’s gleaming, silver, still fogged with the warmth of Q’s skin. He turns it between his fingers, and immediately his phone buzzes with a text message, the number unfamiliar but not blocked: _Careful with that, 007. Two twists to the left and then 10 seconds._

Afterwards, the mission over, he calls the number. “It was closer to twelve seconds,” he points out.

“Was it,” Q breathes, at the other end of the line. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for a return of the equipment.”

“I’m sure you could come up with something better in your pyjamas.”

“No doubt,” Q answers, clipped. “But the waste of--”

Bond cuts across him, his voice pitched low and rough – he’s been at this game too long not to know what that pen meant. “What else do you do in your pyjamas, thinking about me?”

In the room across the street, at the address he easily found out, he sees Q swallow. He’s wearing a plaid shirt, sat at his desk by the window, surrounded by mugs. He looks like a student. Then he looks up, through the glare of the lamp, and sees Bond. 

A moment passes. Slowly, Q sits back. “I suppose,” he says, admirably steady, “that you might as well come in.”

 

**3) Debriefing**

He’s lifting weights in the HQ gym when Tanner sidles around the corner, holding a tablet. “007.” Bond grunts an acknowledgement. “You were never properly debriefed, after...recent events.”

“I suppose I wasn’t.” He slides the bar into place, lowering his shaking arms. Better. Still far from optimal, but better.

“We can do this later, if you like.”

“Not at all,” Bond drawls, sitting up on the bench. “This is becoming something of a tradition.”

Tanner pulls up a seat, looking out of place in his suit and tie. His eyes seem riveted to the tablet. “Can you provide me with a full account of events, from Shanghai onward?”

Bond tells him: killing Fabrice, the casino, meeting Severine. _Yes, this corroborates what we have already been told._ Few details of the subsequent boat trip. He takes off his sweat-soaked shirt, uses it to wipe his forehead, watches Tanner fail to meet his gaze. 

“Then we were captured. My hands were tied, and I was taken to a room filled with computers. Silva walked in.”

“And then?” Tanner asks.

“Then,” Bond says, “he tried to seduce me.”

Tanner looks up, eyes wide, the tablet forgotten. “And, er. Did he succeed?”

“As it turns out, he wasn’t really trying.” He splays out his legs a bit wider; Tanner is watching him as though he’ll need to compile a report on every curve of muscle. It makes him shiver pleasurably, blunts the memory of Silva’s touch on his neck, his thighs. In truth, Bond doesn’t mind whether he’s on top, so long as he’s still in control. 

“Upon consideration, Mr. Tanner,” he says, just before he tips forward onto his knees, “perhaps the report really can wait.”

 

**4) Desk Job**

He can’t deny that his mission briefings are always enlivened by encounters with Eve Moneypenny. Sometimes they’ll flirt across the desk; sometimes, schedules permitting, she’ll tug him into the stationary cupboard or the file room, and pull his tie until spots form behind his eyes, wrap her athletic legs around his waist. She likes that he claims to be frightened of her, even when she is sitting, prim and proper, at her tidy station. Afterwards, she’ll ask when he’s planning to make an honest woman out of her. 

He knows she’s joking. The two of them have always been honest with each other, but not by telling the truth.

 

**5) Record**

At the end of the briefing, Mallory pours him a drink without asking. “Bond, I need to ask. Did you and my predecessor...”

Bond is stony-faced: from the inside out, he is frozen granite, radiating cold. The corner of M’s mouth quirks. “You must admit, you have developed a certain reputation.”

“Have I?” he asks, and deliberately thaws, out to his fingertips. Mallory doesn’t blink, but his own stance changes slightly, leaning against the desk. “I’ve not had any complaints.”

“I can imagine that’s the case.” Bond can tell that Mallory’s amused, though nothing in his face gives it away. He makes a calculated risk.

“Of my discretion, or my – abilities,” he says, and places his glass on M’s desk. Then he stays there, until Mallory’s right palm comes to rest at his side, light and impersonal.

“The things I’m learning about this organisation,” M says, and asks Moneypenny to cancel his appointments for the hour.


End file.
